


Runner

by Palatinedreams



Series: Song Tales [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hunters & Hunting, M/M, Running, Temporary Amnesia, based on a Rammstein song, based on the song 'Du Riechst So Gut'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:22:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27334114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palatinedreams/pseuds/Palatinedreams
Summary: A lonely man is running, but his hunters will come and get him because they can smell him wherever he'll go and no matter how fast he will run.
Relationships: John Sheppard/Todd the Wraith
Series: Song Tales [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2011660
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	Runner

**Author's Note:**

> I often get inspired by special songs, and the songs from the band Rammstein are very inspiring. The idea to this story didn't leave me alone any longer, and it's circling around the song 'Du Riechst So Gut', entirely. It was written and published in 1995, years before John stepped through the Stargate for the first time, but if their song is not about a Wraith hunting his human prey, then I don't know what it is about. ;-)
> 
> I translated the song as close to the original text as possible and put it beneath the story for all who are interested in it. <33

Twigs and branches were whipping against his face as he ran into the thick forest, the bluish glow of the open wormhole feeling like the dangerous glare of a giant eye on his damp back and sending cold shivers of fear through his body.

He ran faster, and he didn't turn around to see if his pursuers were following him – as he knew that they would come after him. They wouldn't spare him, and the stench of his fear and his sweat would lead them in his direction, no matter how fast he would run or where he would try to hide.

There was a small overgrown path winding itself through the thicket, and he followed it, the rhythmical hammering of his heavy boots on the earthy ground competing with the wild beating of his heart and drowning out any other sound.

They would follow him through the giant blue eye, and they would come soon. They were faster than any human, faster and much more dangerous, able to see in the darkness as clearly as he could only see in the daylight. They would pick up his scent and find him, and he knew that he needed to run faster. His lungs were burning, screaming in pain as he accelerated his steps, but he didn't slow down.

He didn't know his name or who he was, but he knew that they would come and get him.

They.

He might have forgotten who he was, but he remembered them so clearly and he knew that he needed to run if he wanted to escape them. Run and never stop, because they would follow him to the farthest corner of this world and any other as well, and even if he was lucky enough to make it back to the giant blue eye and escape through it to another world, they would still come after him and find him.

There was a name in his clouded mind all of a sudden, a rather short single word, and it made more cold sweat break out on his already wet skin at the mere sound of it.

_Wraith._

The Wraith were coming, and they would get him and kill him if he didn't run faster than they did.

Pictures flashed before his eyes, the picture of a child crawling in the dirt with blind eyes and crying for its mother. She'd been lying motionless in the grass, her unique scent guiding her child to her like it had been for centuries and millennia between children and their mothers. But the Wraith had been everywhere, chasing after each of them, and he had been too powerless, unable to stop them.

All he'd been able to do to escape the madness and the inferno was run before they would get him, too.

The Wraith didn't need to see him to find him, they didn't need to see him to know where he was, even in the darkness. The smell of his salty sweat and his warm blood pulsing through his veins would lead them onto the right track, and they only needed to follow the traces he left in his wake.

They preferred hunting by night, that he knew as well, the sunlight too bright for them and clouding their minds and instincts. They would wait until the night would cover everything with its thick black blanket before they would come to get him, and he kept running, wiping angrily the sweat away that was dripping into his eyes. He could almost hear their voices in his head, a soft dreadful whisper.

_'I'm chasing you, I'll get you soon, human. Soon it will be dark, and then I will come after you, touch your wet skin and drain you dry! Don't try to betray me, human, I warn you. Don't you cry and don't even try to fight back, it will be pointless. I can feel you wherever you'll go, I can taste your fear on my tongue. You smell so good to me, and soon you'll be mine!'_

Darkness was falling rapidly over the planet now, the shadows of the tall trees to his left and his right looking like the dark shadows of giants, of the dangerous predators chasing after him. They loved the dark night, they were creatures of the night, and he needed to run, run, run.

He could still hear their battle cries ringing in his ears, despite the hammering of his heart and the steady drumming of his feet on the ground, the hungry cry of the merciless hunter that wouldn't rest until he'd found his prey was still sounding everywhere in his mind.

Desire and reason, two things that repelled each other.

The _Wraith._

So dangerous because of their desire for human life, and so dangerous because of their sharp minds.

No human could ever hope to defeat them, to escape them. He needed to run, but they would still succeed in the end.

The narrow path widened to a wooden bridge that was arching in a gracious bow over a river all of a sudden, and the sounds his boots were making on the wood echoed loudly in the cool night air as he set his feet onto the bridge to cross it and disappear into the forest behind it. He'd just reached the middle of the bridge when the moon was peeking out behind thick clouds and shining onto the tall figure standing on the other side of the river near the shore.

The Wraith was waiting for him, silently and motionless, his long white hair cascading over his back like a thick shimmering silvery waterfall, the long sleek strands blowing in the soft breeze that was playing with them. His pale face wore a triumphant expression as the runner looked at his nemesis, and he bared his gray lips to a predatory hiss as he waited for his prey to come to him.

Ghostly white shadows were moving through the darkness behind him, disappearing behind the trees and emerging again, and he could feel a beginning madness clawing at his mind. The Wraith was creating the ghosts, and his hunter was enjoying the fear of his prey, bathing in it and feasting on the sharp stench of it.

He wanted to run, but his feet were frozen on the wooden floor of the bridge, and he feared that it would crash beneath him or burn up in flames if he dared to move.

The Wraith threw his head back and his hungry cry filled the night and hurt the runner's ears, finally breaking the spell he'd been under since his eyes had caught sight of his hunter. He turned around and attempted to run back from where he'd come again, but there was suddenly another Wraith standing on his side of the river and blocking his way, and he was gliding closer and creeping up on him, his yellow-golden eyes glowing strangely in his face. He was tall, and his hair was shorter than the hair of the other Wraith, reaching down to his shoulders in tousled waves. Black lines that looked like a stylized star enclosed his left eye, and his nostrils and the sensor pits beside his nose flared when he took in the sharp scent of fear his prey gave away.

He was trapped between the two Wraith without anywhere to go, and when he looked over his shoulder, he could see that the first Wraith had almost reached him, his cool breath ghosting over his damp neck as he reached out with a clawed hand to touch him with a victorious snarl.

His chest was heaving with his raged breaths, sweat dripping onto the bridge, and he turned his head back and forth between the two Wraith. He wanted to run, but he couldn't run away anymore. They had come after him just like he'd known that they would, and now they would get him and drain him dry. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out, and he couldn't move, only watch like a distant spectator.

The Wraith with the star around his eye had reached him as well now, his angry hiss making the human shiver.

“You won't take what's mine, Wraith!” he hissed, and there was a sudden motion and the sparkling of a lethal blade. The human gasped out in shock, but the blade was not aimed at him, not meant to hurt him. Instead it was aimed at the other Wraith as it cut his throat and made him stumble backwards and lose his balance. The runner watched him fall over the railing of the bridge and then the river carry the Wraith away, and when he raised his head to meet the alien glittering golden eyes again, the Wraith with the tousled hair and the star-tattoo reached out with his hand to touch his sweaty face and gently pull him close to his tall and broad black-clad body.

“You knew that I would come after you and find you, Sheppard, didn't you?” he purred as he brought their faces close together to inhale his scent and sniff at his vulnerable throat, right where John's pulse was racing.

“You knew that I would come and get you before he would do it, right?”

John let out a shaky laugh, and as he was inhaling the scent of his true mate now, and the spell he'd been under was gone together with the other Wraith, everything was suddenly back again, his memory, his name, everything.

“Uhm, I guess so, Todd?” he gave back with some kind of counter question of his own, resting his head on the Wraith's shoulder and burying his nose in the tousled strands of Todd's silver-white hair.

The Wraith chuckled and pulled him closer, and then they were just standing there and breathing in each other's familiar scent as they were waiting for their heartbeats to slow down again after the long run. Todd's laughter rumbled in his chest, and John knew that he was safe and home again when his beloved Wraith nibbled at his damp skin and purred:

“Ahhh, Shepparrrrrd, you smell so good, so good...”

_Madness_

_Is just a small bridge_

_The shores are reason and desire_

_I'm chasing you_

_Sunlight clouding mind_

_A blind child crawling forward_

_Because it smells its mother_

_The trace is fresh and on the bridge_

_Your sweat is dropping, your warm blood_

_I don't see you_

_I only smell you, I sense you_

_A predator crying with hunger_

_I pick up your scent miles away_

_You smell so good_

_You smell so good_

_I come after you_

_You smell so good_

_I go for you, so good_

_I'm chasing you_

_You smell so good_

_I'll get you soon_

_I wait for the darkness to fall_

_Then I touch wet skin_

_Don't give me away_

_Oh, don't you see the bridge is burning_

_Stop crying and don't fight back_

_Because it'll crash otherwise_

_You smell so good_

_You smell so good_

_I come after you_

_You smell so good_

_I go for you, so good_

_I'm chasing you_

_You smell so good_

_I'll get you soon_

_You smell so good_

_You smell so good_

_I come after you_

_You smell so good_

_So good, so good_

_I'm touching you_

_You smell so good_

_Now I have you!_

_Rammstein, 'Du Riechst So Gut', 1995_

**Author's Note:**

> Kind feedback would really make me happy!


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